Friday, December 16, 2011

interview

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/newsinc/landing_page.html?freewheel=90057&sitesection=huffingtonpost&VID=98090

Thursday, December 8, 2011

too much knowledge a good thing or not?

We all agree that knowledge is more important than money. Now what? Is too much knowledge a good thing or a bad thing? What do you think?
It seems like that is the case with the Lawyer. What does he say about wisdom and society?

Required Vocabulary for The Bet and Homework due December 15

Name____________________________________________ Date______ L4T__ Ms. De Pas

Vocabulary List for “The Bet “ by Anton Chekhov

Directions: define in English, usage from the context of the story. Use the spaces below to add your words.

1. solitary confinement

3. capital punishment

4. life imprisonment

5. immoral ( adj )

6. unsuitable( adj )

7. á priori is Latin for from the earlier, it means knowing without doing something, knowing something is true without proof

8. humane( adj )

9. clever ( adj )

10. senseless( adj )

11. frivolous ( adj )

12. spoilt ( adj )(spoiled)

13. trifle ( N )

14. Gospel –The teachings of Jesus Christ, the relighous book of Christians

15. compulsory ( adj )

16. voluntary ( adj )

17. to poison (V)

18. meaningless ( adj )

19. nonsensical ( adj )

20. reckoning (N) calculation, understanding

21. pluck ( adj ) courage, nerve

22. dreary ( adj )

23. captivity (N)

24. threshold (N)

25. bound ( adj )required, forced

26. foe (N)

27. to procure

28. zealously ( adv )

29. treatise (N) an essay, a study of

30. indiscriminately (adv)

31. indebted (V)

32. lodge(N) a small house

33. emaciated ( adj )thin, shrunken

34. whirl (N) a turn, spin

35. hideousness ( adj ) ugliness, repulsiveness

36. contempt (N) hatred, disdain

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

Spoken Word Poem by Luke Nephew ......read this out loud

This was written by Luke Nephew, our resident poet, about prisoners having a hunger strike (refusing food) in California. Spoken Word is a type of rap poetry. It usually has to be heard to be understood and felt. He performs his poetry; it's not usually written. So for us, Luke typed it out with the different fonts showing different 'voices'.
Read it loud and strong with feeling!

PELICAN BAY PRISON HUNGER STRIKE

California, USA 2011

Last night, a hungry man spoke to me

His voice, echoing in the solitary confinement of a cell in Pelican Bay prison,

Grabbed me by the shoulders and said:

Child my torture is older than you

Since before 1982 we’ve been stuffed savage against too much cement

If our dissent is baggage, I hope it ain’t too heavy for you to carry, Little Brother,

We’ve been kept in cages of empty pages

I need a pen to get out this pen

My family can’t even get a picture of me

He can’t even hear his daughter’s voices

We don’t have any choice

Is this making any sense?

Am I making any noise?

I don’t know any more if this is the floor or the ceiling…

We were not transferred here for killing or stealing,

They say it’s for an affiliation with gangs but most of the time that ain’t even true

If this were for our physical security, wouldn’t they let us choose?

Somebody please, stop this abuse, I can still remember the taste of the sun

Stop the silence

I can’t remember the face of my own sun

I’ve been in solitary confinement for decades

What have I become?

What have they done?

Little brother I’ve been pushed so far to the brink…

That I think you hear me through these tears and bars and scars, I think I just think…

BROTHER, I HEAR YOU

Your voice is echoing within the walls of my chest

like I was made up of concrete cells and I can smell the hunger on your breadth

Tell me big brother, how close is death?

No, its not hear yet…but some of the brothers are getting sick

We’re two weeks into the hunger strike and its sounds like over 6,600 prisoners from across California State are jointing us in solidarity… No, wait… I don’t know if you can hear me, I know they paint us bloodthirsty dirty and unworthy so you fear me

I don’t know if you can face the facts that’s history still scripts like rips across our slashed backs, what would you do if I told you that

The United States has more human beings in prison than any other country in the world

That one in each hundred adults in America is locked up

That there is torture in the united states prison system

And we are hunger striking to the death until the United States listens!!!

I hear you

But will you listen?

Tell me,

They treat us like they hate us

Emasculate us and degrade us

They lock us up in cages, this is not the middle ages

This is right now in California states prisons

This is a plantation

This is Tuskegee and they ain’t frontin like it’s for science

They are just hoping for us to riot

So they can evoke Attica on all of us

But we are not

We are peacefully protesting

With clasped hands and empty bellies until they stop

Stop torturing us and if that is not enough we will die

If than is not enough than I am ashamed to be human

Brother, I will write your prayers like stares onto the air,

Speak the uprising tides in your words breaking to be heard…I will…

Last night,

A hungry man spoke to me

His voice entering my chest infused into my breadth,

So if you thought you couldn’t hear him yet, I get to promise you are wrong,

His bars are always ours and this is all his song,

That echoes all the way here from the solitary confinement of Pelican Bay Prison

Where many men are dying to know

If we will listen

Hard enough

To stop the massacre

Being committed

In our name,

On our land,

With our money

And with our permission

That we grant

Everytime

We do

Nothing.

-The Peace Poets

LRN

Luke R. Nephew

Co-Founder and Artist Educator

of thepeacepoets.com

Sarah Shourd interview

This is a long but interesting interview that Sarah gave. I think that her fiance and friend are still in Iran.

BTW PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It when the sounds and events of war or prison interrupt a person's life or sleep. It happens to soldiers who come back from war. Jeff, my former student to visited L4T-08 today, talked about not being able to sleep after 2 years in Afghanistan.

Post settings
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/world/middleeast/20hiker.html?ref=christianeamanpour

Background article about Sarah Shourd

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/world/middleeast/20hiker.html?ref=christianeamanpour

This article was written just after Sarah was released from 13 months of solitary confinement.

What do you think of her saying that she feels only 1/3 free? What does that mean? When, if ever, will she be 100% free?

Monday, November 21, 2011

The text of The Bet

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Bet.shtml

This is the actual version we are using in class as well as the one that is read on Librivox. (http://librivox.org/)
You can listen online, put it on your MP3 player or iPod to listen at your own leisure.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Personal Essay on Solitary Confinement Today

New Your Times Essay on Solitary Confinment

This essay is required reading after you read "The Bet."

Monday, October 31, 2011

Kermit the Frog

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Tips for writing .......On the Paragraph

On the Paragraph: These are great tips for good writing.

'via Blog this'http://www.sabri.org/OnTheParagraph.htm

More Vocabulary Games

Please go to the website below to play some games that will sharpen your skills. Play for 15 minutes.Then post a comment with your name and how you felt about the game. you can post your score if you wish.

Ms De Pas

This is a fun site--the more you play the smarter you get--and you feed the poor. You can play English vocabulary or grammar or other subjects. The more you do the better it is for you. Share this site with your friends.

http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1590

Literary Devices Games

Please go to the websites below to play some games that will sharpen your skills.

Alliteration is a type of repetition--the same letter or sound is repeated. For example: "baby boy in a blue blanket" the /b/ repeated. "Cuando, cuando, cuando" is not alliteration.

http://eclassroom.110mb.com/3rd%209%20weeks%20web/Figlang1.swf

http://eclassroom.110mb.com/3rd%209%20weeks%20web/figurative_language_-_classify_it!.swf

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Summary of "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant

This is my brief summary of the story. You can read this before you watch the videos (look in the posts from September) so that you can have an idea of what is going on in the French videos. Since you don't understand French, and the story I gave you is long, this will help you. YOU MUST READ THE WHOLE STORY ANYWAY!

Madame Loisel is unhappy and poor in Paris, 1865. She wants to be high class and rich, but she's married to a clerk. Her husband, the clerk, comes home one afternoon, after a long hard day's work with an invitation to a party at the Minister of Education's house. Instead of being happy, Madame Loisel is unhappy because she has no dress to wear. Her husband, who has worked hard to save up money for a gun, uses the money to buy Madame Loisel a dress. She's still not happy because she feels that she will look out of place (poor--which she is) if she does not wear jewelry. Her husband makes a good suggestion.

Madame Forestier, an old school friend, has lots of jewels, including a beautiful expensive diamond necklace. She gladly lends it to Madame Loisel for the party. Now, Madame Loisel is finally happy...until she loses the necklace. She and her husband decide not to tell Madame Forestier the truth about losing the necklace. They must borrow money to replace the necklace and spend the next 10 years of their life, working hard to earn enough to pay back the money they borrowed. One day while strolling along the a very nice street in Paris, Madame Loisel runs into Madame Forestiere and tells her what happened. Forestiere, shocked by Madame Loisel's tragic story, informs her that the necklace she lent her that day ten years ago was a fake.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

A student's analysis of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

youtube video of "The Road Not Take"

Poem Flow

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

"The Road Not Taken" read by Robert Frost

Please complete both handouts-the vocabulary and the summary paragraph--on looseleaf for next class. Read my comments to help you understand the poem.

The newest piece of literature we will analyze is "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. This is a very well-known poem by a well-loved American poet who used natural and rural symbols in his poems to discuss social themes. This poem has been loved and read and misunderstood by people for almost 100 years! Be very careful when you read and analyze this poem.

Ask and answer these questions as you read and analyze the poem:

Symbolism--The "road" is a not a real or literal road. What is the road a symbol for? Who is the traveler?
Setting--When and where does this poem take place? Why are the leaves of the wood yellow?
Conflict--What is his conflict? When he can't see to the end of the road what does he choose to do?
A road that is grassy and "wanted wear"--wanted someone to walk on it--what does that mean? What does he say that he will think about his decision?

What I am asking you to look at now are the last 2 lines, in the last stanza:

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

You can't take this to mean that he is sorry, or that he regrets his choice. NO! He says, as he is making a choice (at the fork in the road=symbolism), and he is young--he is looking to his future (foreshadowing) that he could have chosen either way (both choices are equal, popular, and nice, ("both paths may be equally worn and equally leaf-covered"). He says in the 2nd and 3rd stanzas that in the future, he will look back and then call one road "less traveled by." This is Foreshadowing - hints or a suggestion of what is to come in the action of a play, poem or a story not Flashback (looking at the past).

The sigh "aaaah", is mistakenly interpreted as regret (that he made the wrong decision) or self satisfaction (that he made the right decision). But no! Robert Frost is playing with us. He is not saying he made a good or bad decision. He says that both roads look the same, but in the future (he can not change his mind, change his decisions) he KNOWS he will think that he took the one that was less common, less popular. And that "has made the difference.' made his life turn out the way it did.

You can never go back and change your choices in the past-- you can only go forward. When you are older, your memories trick you, you don't remember things correctly. It's human nature.

Listen to Robert Frost read his poem.......You may have to copy and paste the URL into your browser.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717

The Road Not Taken (1915)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Little Things Are Big-Characterization

What would you ask the Black man if you had a chance to speak to him?. How has the character changed over the years? How has the incident years ago affected him now?

Little Things Are Big comments

L4T-08 post a comment and then read your classmates' comments and respond to one person. 1. If you were in a similar situation as the white woman--alone, late at night, scared--and a strange person approached you--what would you do? What would your reaction be? 2. Why do you think she was out alone at night? What questions would you like to ask her?

Monday, September 26, 2011

Identifying Conflicts in Little Things Are Big

Many works of literature develop around conflict. Characters may face several types of conflict including self vs. self, self vs. person, self vs. society, and self vs. nature. In Little Things Are Big Colon struggles with both internal and external conflicts. Choose three different types of conflict that Jesus Colon faces over the course of the story. In the table below,

1. Describe the conflict
2. Identify what type of conflict
3. Explain if and how each conflict is resolved
Conflict Type of Conflict Resolution

1

2

3

Next, rewrite the ending of Little Things Are Big so that Colon approaches the woman, addressing one of these conflicts. (How does the woman respond to Colon's actions? What impact does this have on Colon?)

Little Things are Big

"The Necklace" part 2

La Parure 2/2 by apocalyptique00">
Part 2 of the Necklace

This is an excellent video of a famous French story--in French! I can't show this in school, it's blocked but you can watch it at home. Just turn off the volume, watch the videos and enjoy. It's really well done, very interesting and one o the most important short stories you will read.

"The Necklace" part1 by de Maupassant

La Parure 1/2 by apocalyptique00">

L4T Course Outline Fall 2011

Course Outline and Parent, Teacher and Student Contract

Class Code and Section: L4T Subject: ESL Literature Term: Fall 2011

Teacher: Ms. Nancy De Pas Telephone: (718) 937-6005, ext. 104

Email: ndepas@schools.nyc.gov Blog: MsDePas@blogspot.com

This class is an advanced English literature course designed to help you all your language skills and to prepare for passing the English Regents Exam.. Students will improve their formal and informal language, listen for information, read for comprehension, write essays and speak clearly. It is important that you are immersed in an English-speaking environment, both at home and at school, so that you will use what you learned in class, think in English, therefore write better in English and have improved fluency. This will ensure that you will do well in the class, pass the English Regents, and graduate high school.

1. Course Goals and Objectives

· Academic skills – Improve writing summary and controlling idea paragraphs, learn how to write a critical lens essay, participate in literature circles

· Language skills – Improved verbal and written expression of English, discussion of literary ideas,

· Content – Poetry, short stories, music, films, videos, a novel

· Thinking skills – mastering of literary terms, analyze and critique literature, synthesize themes found in literature across different genres

2. Course Requirements and Expectations

Lateness and Absences – Be on time. Attend class every day. Bring a note from your doctor or parents when you are absent. Students who are late, cut class or are absent will miss important work such as assignments, cooperative activities, quizzes and tests and therefore they will get a lower grade. Late homework is not accepted. Students are responsible to get the assignments and notes from a classmate when they are absent.
Note-taking – Speak, read and write English in class. Copy all class notes. Keep notes, handouts and returned work in your binder. Participate and do your own work in class and at home.
Behavior in class –Respect yourself and others. Respect all teachers and school staff members. Do not disrupt, talk or play in class. Dress appropriately for school. No iPods, cell phones or hats are permitted. Don’t chew gum, write on the desks, apply make-up, or eat in class. Pick up and throw out your trash. Respect school furniture and equipment. If you break any school rule, you may be sent to the dean’s office and face possible suspension. If your cell phone is taken away from you, a parent will be asked to come to school to claim it.
Use of textbooks – Textbooks will be kept in the classroom and a text book will be sent home for study and homework. Students must bring their book to school every day. He or she is not permitted to write in the book. A fine will be charged for unreturned and damaged books.
Class participation – Come to class prepared to learn every day. Bring your binder, pens, highlighter and dictionary/translator. Raise your hand to speak. Pay attention to the teacher and other students.

3. Themes & Topics

First Marking Period – power of language, desire, ambition, discrimination, sacrifice and choice
Second Marking Period – coming of age, responsibility, family dynamics, immigrant experience
Third Marking Period – domestic violence, self identity, confronting challenges, independence

4. Assessment Policy

Homework (25%)
Participation and Group-work (25%)
Exams, Essays and Quizzes (25%)
Projects and Presentations (25%)

5. Closing statement to parents & students

You will use teacher provided handouts and books: Voices in Literature Gold, House on Mango Street
I look forward to meeting with you at the Parent-Teacher Conferences: Thursday, October 27, 2011 (6:00-8:30 PM); and Friday, October 28, 2011 (1:00-3:00 PM).
You may contact me to discuss your child’s progress at (718) 937-6005, ext. 104 ndepas@schools.nyc.gov
Attendance in After School and Saturday Program is recommended for your child’s academic success.

Students, please sign. Parents, please sign that you will help your child follow the contract.

***************************************************************************************************

Ms. Nancy De Pas Student’s signature _____________________________Print Name _________________

Parent/guardian’s signature_______________________ Print Name__________________ relationship____________